The Portland Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines is in staunch opposition to the request by US oil company Global Partners LP to allow the shipment of crude and heavier sinking oil through Columbia County. We are in deep solidarity with the most affected communities calling for an end to the global extraction, transportation and exportation of fossil fuels.

Global Partners’ request implies an increase in oil by rail traffic, which threatens local communities with an increased risk of train derailments, oil spills and explosions similar to the 2016 catastrophe in the Columbia River Gorge that forced the evacuation of an entire town, contaminated drinking water, and threatened Native American fishing grounds.

The threat of an increase in oil transportation comes at the request of an international system of fossil fuel extraction and export that feeds imperialist wars of aggression. Oregon’s rivers and coast connects us to a system of trade that pillages the earth for natural resources through military violence. This same system continues to exploit workers in the name of global profit, and perpetuates the rapidly increasing and devastating effects of climate chaos.The crude tar sands oil shipped through our state by rail is ultimately exported from our ports overseas for consumption in Asia, while many of the resources we import come from resource-rich countries like the Philippines. An increase in fossil fuel transports in Oregon means an increase in global extraction and consumption of fossil fuels.

In the Philippines, mining is a multi-billion dollar industry that displaces indigenous communities from their ancestral lands and destroys the natural environment. Even before large pit mines are developed, exploratory drilling efforts by foreign corporations interrupt the lives of local farms by boring test holes into their fields cutting down the amount of arable land they have. At the same time, leaching toxic chemicals used in the drilling process into the earth, damaging the ecosystem and poisoning the water supply for the local communities. The destruction far outweighs any benefit the community ever sees.

Corporations extract the resources and the profit with it, leaving behind a trail of environmental degradation and local poverty. The majority of resources extracted from the Philippines are immediately exported to imperialist nations.

The links between these corporations and the military become more apparent as both US and Philippines troops violently terrorize and forcibly remove families from their homes to protect and aid in the corporate theft of resources. The infrastructure put in place to terrorize people simultaneously destroys precious biodiversity and is the biggest contributor to pollution worldwide. US imperialism and militarism has created and continues to fuel this crisis.

From Columbia County to the Philippines, PCHRP calls for an end to the imperialist violence placing communities and the environment at risk of major disaster for the sake of corporate profit.